00:00Now, Atomic Invest CEO David Dindy believes we're entering the biggest interface shift in financial services since the smartphone.
00:08He says the next battle in finance won't be between apps. It'll be between AI companions.
00:15And he joins us. I'm proud to say now, David, thanks so much for coming to New York and sitting
00:20with us for a little bit.
00:21I am fascinated by the idea of AI companions and the application of this technology for so many things in
00:30our daily lives.
00:31You think it's going to start trading stocks for us?
00:33I think so. I think it's already happening right now. Many people are using AI to start their investing research.
00:41I think in the next coming coming years, you'll start to see people start to delegate the authority to manage
00:46their accounts to these AI companions.
00:48I would actually say in five to ten years' time, it's unlikely that you will actually go to an investing
00:54app to manage your account.
00:57I don't think investing apps will exist in their current form. I think it will be an AI companion that's
01:01doing that for you instead.
01:04So what would you have to do, though?
01:06I mean, an AI companion, I imagine, would still have to plug into some sort of investment platform like Atomic
01:13or Interactive Brokers or Robinhood
01:16and able to make trades and buy and sell shares, custody its assets. How does that work?
01:23Yeah, you're right in the sense that even though the interface layer changes, even though you're moving away from people
01:29accessing these services from apps,
01:31the underlying activity of accessing the securities market still has to happen through regulated institutions.
01:38And likely that could be, you know, your existing broker-dealer where your AI companion gives you access to your
01:45account through their interface.
01:46Or it could be that the AI companion itself partners with an institution that's similar to Atomic that enables them
01:53to offer these services natively
01:54and that provides a regulatory coverage under which this activity can occur.
01:58And so this is exactly why I think the news on Fedmaster accounts is so interesting.
02:04Because of the president's recent executive order, more fintech companies like yours could offer this kind of service to consumers.
02:14Yeah, if you think about what happens underneath the hood in fintech, most of the innovation that you've seen around
02:20neobanks
02:21and payment applications are really built on the bank sponsorship model.
02:25So as a fintech, you have to find a bank partner to be able to access the Fed payments network
02:30or to hold deposits.
02:32But this shift essentially allows a fintech that's appropriately regulated to be able to have direct access to the Fedmaster
02:39account.
02:40And so that means from a cost perspective, from an infrastructure perspective, from like a speed perspective,
02:46things will be a lot more smoother than they are today as a result of eliminating the need for this
02:52underlying dependence.
02:53So what are you doing in terms of R&D when it comes to AI?
02:58I think that where we operate as a company is at the infrastructure layer.
03:03So we essentially provide the infrastructure to allow companies to innovate on top of us, build AI solutions, build even
03:11non-AI solutions there.
03:12So our value is really around the regulatory coverage, access to the market infrastructure for builders and developers to build
03:19on top of ours.
03:19And so we are making our ecosystem a lot more friendly to AI applications as well as to companion systems
03:26that might use us in this particular way.
03:28Are there any companion systems already out there that you see as particularly useful or successful?
03:35Well, I think in the last, actually in the last couple of months, you've seen a number of frontier labs
03:42and AI chat companies start to integrate some degree of financial analysis and financial visibility for their clients.
03:50So, for instance, chat GPT recently announced a partnership with Plaid for you to be able to access your financial
03:57portfolio.
03:58Perplexity has had a partnership with Plaid as well for you to be able to see your Robinhood accounts and
04:04trade in that respect.
04:05So I think we're in that first phase where people are using these systems to have better visibility into their
04:11accounts, ask questions.
04:12But we're still some ways away from being able to take long-term actions such as managing portfolios, planning for
04:19people and allowing people to delegate that authority to these systems completely.
04:24But the bottom line is you see these companions being developed not by Atomic or by Robinhood, but by Anthropic
04:33or by OpenAI in partnership with your platform.
04:37So I think that there are two worlds, right?
04:40One world is to say a Robinhood might develop a companion, which they have today.
04:44They have a companion called Cortex that can help you trade in your account.
04:48But that is a siloed companion, so to speak, that exists in the Robinhood context.
04:54I think the more powerful play here would be for a companion system that services you across many different dimensions
05:02of your life, helps you book tickets, helps you understand,
05:05for instance, you know, if you're planning a diet, how to do that, then at the same time can also
05:11be a personal CFO.
05:13And the reason for that is that it can operate across multiple buckets of your life, as opposed to the
05:19first party agents that are built by these platforms
05:23that only ever see the information that you have on their platform.
05:26So I need a companion. I'm going to have a baby this year, and I need a companion to help
05:32me set up my Trump account.
05:35How soon is it going to come? Like, am I going to have to figure out how to do it
05:38myself?
05:40Well, first of all, it's coming in this July, so you'll be able to open Trump accounts this July, I
05:45believe.
05:45The next question is, when will you be able to roll it over to your existing brokerage account versus using
05:51the account that's established with the Treasury?
05:54That's likely to follow perhaps towards the end of this year or next year.
05:58And, you know, I'm looking forward to you having your baby, and we can talk together about how we can
06:03open that Trump account
06:04through a number of our partners that are going to be launching the solution as well.
06:08I mean, Atomic is going to be doing big business with Trump accounts.
06:12We are. We are.
06:13And how do you see it turning out?
06:17In terms of...
06:18In terms of your business. I mean, how do you think it's going to be accepted?
06:24How many people are going to be opening these? Is it going to be broadly used?
06:27I think it's going to be a big acquisition hook for the companies that we partner with,
06:33because now they can engage with their members and their clients on a different dimension,
06:38which is to really help them get access to these accounts.
06:41And for the children that are actually born, you know, in 2025 and 2026, where there's that $1,000 benefit,
06:48I think that's something which most parents would look to try to get access to.
06:52So I do think that for our business, it will be a boon.
06:55We do have a number of partners that are actually going to be launching these Trump accounts as well
06:59that I'll be happy to share with you in time that I think will really make for expanded access to
07:05this innovation for many people.
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